Why The New Hampshire Primary Was A Victory For Populism

Feb. 10, 2016

Media Outlet: the Huffington Post

Michael Lind was cited in the Huffington Postabout populism and the New Hampshire primary:

Michael Lind, an economic policy expert at the New America Foundation who has written extensively about populist movements in the U.S., offered a similar analysis. Only Lind added opposition to mass immigration to the list of issues on which Trump, at the very least, championed the views of the voting public against the will of the elites.

“It is not that there ever was support from the mass public or voters on either side for free trade, mass immigration and cuts in entitlements -- there was none in 2005, none in 1995, none in 1985,” Lind said.

Lind argued that on all three issues, voters have viewed trade deals, mass immigration and social insurance cuts as threatening their economic interests, whereas Democratic and Republican elites have taken the opposite positions for the same self-interested reasons.

“There is a donor class in both parties that have more in common with each other than their parties’ bases,” Lind said. “They are socially liberal, economically conservative” and supportive of immigration policies that they believe would make services and employees cheaper for them.